President Joe Biden said Wednesday that former President Donald Trump would not accept the outcome of the 2024 election.
“He may not accept the outcome of the election? I promise you he won’t,” Biden said in an interview on CNN, adding that it was “dangerous.”
Biden was responding to a question about Trump’s remarks last week in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country,” Trump said.
Biden said about his rival Wednesday, “The guy is not a democrat with a small ‘d.'”
Biden’s campaign and the White House have previously responded to Trump’s statement. And Biden has previously laid into Trump for election denialism, painting him as a threat to democracy. His assertion Wednesday directly predicted how Trump might behave in November.
Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said in a statement last week about Trump’s comments to the Journal Sentinel, “Bottom line: Trump is a danger to the Constitution and a threat to our democracy.
“The American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge,” Singer continued.
Separately, at a media gaggle last week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denounced “dangerous election denial conspiracy theories” promoted by some on the right.
“There is no place for putting — putting yourself above your entire country,” Jean-Pierre said in response to a question about Trump’s comments. “Like President Biden has previously committed, he will accept the will of the American people.”
In recent interviews, Trump has doubled down on questioning election results. Asked in an interview Tuesday with NBC affiliate WGAL of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, whether he thinks he should have accepted the results of the 2020 election, he said, “No, it would have been a terrible thing.” He added later that if there are not fair and free elections, “you should always have the right to challenge them.”
In an interview last month with Time magazine, Trump was asked about the possibility of political violence if he loses the election.
“If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he said.
“It always depends on the fairness of an election. I don’t believe they’ll be able to do the things that they did the last time. I don’t think they’ll be able to get away with it,” Trump said. “And if that’s the case, we’re gonna win in record-setting fashion.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
